Getting Started with Online Marketing

This blog can give you plenty of good insights and information into things like content and keywords and how to use your Analytics -- but what if you're really just getting started with your web presence? Expressions like "keywords" may not be meaningful to you if you're wondering how to get your business onto the internet.

The short answer is this: call me up and I'll help you. If that's too short, read on.

First, you need to have a website.

It's easy to get a website. There are places online that will put a site up for you, and places where you can do it yourself for free. The only problem is, you can end up spending as much time and money on a bad website that doesn't serve your purposes as you do on a good one that brings in customers and sales. Add the opportunity cost in lost sales and your "low-cost" or "easy" website can end up costing you way too much.

Speaking as someone who works with people who are unhappy with their websites, I can tell you that I very rarely have someone tell me how they carefully chose their designer, hosting firm, and copywriter. People who've done that are usually happy with their websites. The people who come to me wanting to change their websites have had them put together by a kind hobbyist they know, or have taken a stock website sold by the hundreds at a generic service.

Many capable businesspeople feel helpless when it comes to putting together a website, though. I spoke recently with a local businesswoman who has a website that doesn't do much for her. I asked her how she'd chosen her designer and copywriter. "I just did what the phone company said," she shrugged. Sure enough, the phone company put up a website for her, but it has been a disappointment.

The production manager of a printing firm had looked into companies that specialize in making generic websites for printing companies. "There's no creativity there," he said, "and that's not good in a creative business." But once he'd rejected that option, he didn't know where else to look.

Spend some time looking at websites in your industry and talking with your local web design firms. If the designers you speak to can't explain what they could do for you and what your website could accomplish, then just thank them and move on to someone who can. Building a website isn't actually a magical process that only members of the mystical brotherhood can understand.

On the other hand, get someone who can read HTML to check out the designer's code for you, and someone who understands SEO to look at their portfolio. It's the same as buying a car: if you're not a mechanic, you can choose the vehicle and the color you love, but you get your mechanic to look under the hood before you make up your mind.

We're talking about designers first, but you may be thinking that you need space on the web before you can think about design. However, since your designer may also be able to host your website, that's a better starting point.

You also need a domain name. This is your web address, the thing your customers type into the top of the browser to visit you. It needs to be memorable, readable, and available. There are tools that can help you determine what would be a good domain name for you, and it isn't expensive to register one (about $10 a year). If you think you may want a website for your business in the future, you can register "yourbusiness.com" and park it (to continue the car metaphor) until you need it. That way, you won't lose out on having the best possible web address for your business.

The process of designing and setting up your website can be quick, if you choose a ready-made option, but a custom site can take a month to get from initial inteview to live website. Whichever approach you choose, plan the time involved so that you can do the physical-world marketing you need to do to get your website well-known to your current customers.

Once your website is online, you need to get the search engines to notice you. The first step is to tell the major search engines that it exists. I've seen ads online offering to submit your website to the major search engines at high prices, but actually you can just click on these links and submit your website. Follow the directions closely and do it just once.

Yahoo!
Google
MSN
DMOZ

Then use your marketing skills to get the word out about your website. Put the address on your business cards, your signs, your print ads. Your current customers will visit your website to browse, and visit your physical location more often as a result. New customers will see your website and decide to visit you.

For many people today, the internet has taken the place of the phone book, newspaper ads, and asking friends where they'd go. There's no need for you to be missing when they look for you online.